The lions' new home is Akagera National Park, where cattle herders poisoned Rwanda's last lions about 15 years ago after the park was left unmanaged in the genocide's wake. The vehicle then drove to Johannesburg for a charter flight to Rwanda. An Associated Press writer and photographer watched as crane operators loaded the lion crates onto a truck that arrived with two male lions from nearby Tembe Elephant Park. Mike Toft, a wildlife veterinarian who darted five female lions Monday at the Phinda Private Game Reserve in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province. 'There's just no room for them and they're being pressurized and pressurized,' said Dr. By some estimates, there are fewer than 20,000 lions in the wild, a drop of about 40 percent in the past two decades. Lions are designated as vulnerable on an international 'red list' of species facing threats.

The operation this week to move seven South African lions to Rwanda in east-central Africa is an upbeat tale in an otherwise challenging picture for wildlife on the continent, where poaching has surged and human encroachment is shrinking habitats. Then conservationists hoisted the limp bodies into crates, grasping big paws, thick tails and even the imposing heads of animals that earlier pounced on an antelope carcass used as bait to bring them closer to a veterinarian with a tranquilizer gun.

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